The present invention relates to a method of painting and/or printing surfaces of any type of material, such as a material selected from among the group consisting of metals, non-metals, rubbers, plastics, and the like, for imparting a reflecting effect to such surface.
There are various known techniques for obtaining reflecting effects on various surfaces. One is to directly apply an aluminum paper on that surface, which paper has been cut by different rollers into various stratified shapes to refract light. Another manner of obtaining a reflecting surface is by adhering reflecting paper to the surface. However, these techniques have the drawback that they cannot be used for all types of materials. For instance, when reflecting paper is applied to a surface whose coefficient of expansion is greater than that of the reflecting paper, breaks are produced in the reflecting paper so that the surface in question is spoiled and has to be replaced, resulting in additional cost.
Reflecting and aluminum papers cannot be easily applied, for instance, to rubber or plastic, since both of the reflective and aluminum paper lack the necessary flexibility and adherence. The use of reflecting or aluminum papers on certain surfaces is thus limited. In particular, after a short period of use, applied materials of high elasticity are damaged by breaking in numerous directions due to the differences in the elasticities of those materials from that of the backing materials and of the glue applied to the surface. Therefore, this method has remained unused due to the very short life of the product produced.
For metallic or solid surfaces, although the problems caused by expansion are practically non-existent, the method of the present invention achieves the same goal in a far more economical and reliable manner.